i just started reading Sense and Sensibility. i can't believe i never read it before, but there ya go.

what's everyone else reading?

pants

Jul 21 2010, 04:39 AM

QUOTE(damona @ Jul 21 2010, 08:44 AM)

iwhat's everyone else reading?

I've just reread The Edible Woman for my book club (we're reading all Margaret Atwood's books in order, slightly less crazy than War & Peace I hope)

And have The Eyre Affair on deck even though I've never finished Jane Eyre. I'm hoping I've gleaned enough details about the source materials over the years to muddle my way through any tricky bits

sybarite

Jul 21 2010, 05:52 AM

I've just finished Ken McLeod's Cosmonaut Keep (science-fiction, in case the title didn't give it away...). Before that I was halfway through Iain M Banks' Matter but have abandoned it to read... David Geffen's biography. I can't believe I admitted that out loud.

Pants, I wasn't crazy about The Edible Woman, but maybe that's because it really reflects the time it was written (the late 60s/early 70s?) and is kind of disheartening. I liked Sense and Sensibility though; I think it gets overlooked.

pants

Jul 21 2010, 07:14 AM

Syb, I definitely liked it less this time than I did at age 16 or 17 in the 90s. That said it was worth rereading just to see where Atwood started and how she's developed since then. Certain scenes really struck me as being precursors to The Blind Assassin. Still it's a pretty bleak book in a lot of ways.

damona

Jan 12 2011, 10:31 PM

*bump*

i've been reading Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich. i liked it. i would say that i tend to be realistically optimistic, but all this "you can do anything if you just put your mind to it!" crap has always annoyed me. i mean, i can visualize that nice, new SUV that starts every time i want it to, and the big house where each of my boys has their own room and i have a library, but somehow, i just don't think that will ever happen in my life. and there's no point in living in a dream world when i've got enough shit to deal with in this one, y'know?

i've read Nickel and Dimed, and Bait and Switch by her, too. has anyone else read her stuff? what do you think?

sybarite

Jan 13 2011, 08:36 AM

I've read (and re-read) Nickel and Dimed, and read an interview with her about Bright-Sided. I really like her approach and her integrity, how she examines and explores areas of life which most people think can't be changed. Everyone should read Nickel and Dimed, for the perspective it provides alone.

How is Bait and Switch?

anarch

Jan 23 2011, 02:03 PM

I thought Bait and Switch was not as good as Nickel and Dimed, primarily because she's trying to pass herself off as a PR person, but because she hasn't actually worked in the industry, she hasn't got any real contacts. Which skews the experiment from the get-go.

Bright-Sided I appreciated because I've had run-ins with people whose religiosity about "think positive" verges on shit like blaming Jews for bringing the Holocaust down upon themselves.

On the other hand, I'm just finishing a book called Positivity that details studies that have proved that genuine positive thinking in non-terminal-disease circumstances really can affect physiological, not just psychological, responses. I'm curious about whether the author will address contexts like being diagnosed with a serious or fatal disease, or whether she thinks her work is relevant to people with clinical depression. (She probably won't. She actually spends more time on "how to think positive" than the science, which I think is too bad. There's enough "think positive" manuals out there already.)

I came in here to post this delightful comment about Lolita (I just watched the 1997 Jeremy Irons movie and was looking around to see if my recollection of the book was correct):

"Due to the scandalous material of the story, Lolita ended up being published by the Olympia Press, which was generally known as a pornography publisher. All Olympia Press titles came out with the same plain green text-only cover. Now, (if I'm remembering this story correctly) Appel [editor and annotator of The Annotated Lolita]was in the army when he read Lolita, and once a fellow soldier saw the book, and taking it for porn, eagerly grabbed it and started reading aloud to the rest of the platoon. "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps... Awww shit, this ain't porn, it's goddamn littrachur!""

genghis cunt

Jan 25 2011, 08:43 AM

The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings.

Synergy

Feb 1 2011, 03:30 PM

I just read 1984 by Orwell.It was the second time i read it, but the first was more than 10 years ago so i didn't remember the storyline very well. But i knew it was really good. And it still is!

genghis cunt

Feb 1 2011, 06:59 PM

I'm also reading Stiff by Mary Roach. It's about the scientific and medical use of cadavers.